


when September ends

by jennity



Series: We Ain't Ever Getting Older [1]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-21
Updated: 2019-01-21
Packaged: 2019-10-14 01:22:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17498975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jennity/pseuds/jennity
Summary: Prequel to Baby, Pull Me Closer. How did Rey and Ben know each other? Why did they fall away from one another?





	when September ends

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Closer](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/451037) by Chain Smokers ft. Halsey. 



> So Baby, Pull Me Closer is going to be finished, I promise, but my brain wouldn't let me work on it until I clarified some of the past first, so here we go. It'll probably have another update or two before this is finished and then awkwardness in BPMC abounds!

He was born in July of 1982 and she was born in April of 1992.

It’s not like he didn’t think about her, not as if he completely blocked her from his mind. No, he still thought about her every day. She was still a ray of sunshine in the back of his mind, casting shadows of doubt over every questionable decision he makes. He could still feel her eyes narrowed in a glare, prickling his skin and making his heart clench with a feeling of guilt he brushed off. No, he never forgot her. She was never far from his mind, no matter how much he tried to wipe her memory away. She would always be there, just as his parents were, just as Ben was. But even that gave him a little solace, in a way. They were there, just in his past. His parents, Ben, and the little girl he pretended he never loved. 

When he was 21 and she was 12, his parents, or at least his mother, asked him to look after her while they were away. He….wasn’t thrilled. 

“I’m not a goddamn babysitter,” he had growled. And that, that was very true. He wasn’t a babysitter, wasn’t fit to take care of anyone including himself, but that didn’t stop him from being the only one that Leia trusted to take care of the slip of a girl she had been caring for. When Han’s plane went down overseas and Leia had to go pull some of the diplomatic strings to get him free, Ben was on his way to Tucson Arizona to check out a different university, one that would take him farther away from his parents who he felt were just too much. It’s not like they stayed still for very long, but their home base being in San Francisco was just too close for comfort these days. They balked at the absurdity of his desire to leave Stanford, told him he’d change his mind once he saw some other schools, but they didn’t realize that the further away from them he was the less he gave a damn about the school. The only requirement for him was a reasonable amount of freedom, which he certainly wasn’t getting now. 

Sure, it concerned him a smidge that Han’s plane had gone down somewhere over the middle east, but he was fairly confident that his father could talk his way out of anything and everything including death and family reunions. That’s one thing he actually grudgingly admitted to admiring about him. He was determined to someday be as skillfully and charmingly deceitful as dear old dad. Plus, once Leia was involved in the rescue there’s no doubt of Han’s safety, so now was the time to get out of California and try to transfer elsewhere while they were sufficiently distracted. He hadn’t counted on having to take a twelve year old with him, though. 

“Why can’t Luke take her?” he’d demanded of Leia as she kissed him on the forehead (despite a disgruntled growl) and climbed into the cab.  
“If I knew where Luke was, I’m sure he would, but he’s off on one of his adventures again and can’t be found.”  
Translation: his uncle was off on a quest to understand the universe again, possibly in a swamp or on a mountainside because of fucking course he was. 

“I can’t be held responsible for taking care of a 12 year old, mother.” 

Leia leveled a cold glare at him at this. “Well that’s too damn bad, Benjamin Organa-Solo. She has no where else to go and I cannot take her with me, it’s too dangerous. You can survive a week with her, and then she’ll be out of your hair and back in mine,” the tone of her voice softened with the crinkle of her eye as she cast a fond look over to the girl in question, standing listlessly by the open door of his family home. 

He scowled at her, and she narrowed her eyes in displeasure to match. This was going to be so much fun. Leia laid a palm on his face, leaning up to kiss his forehead again, partially out of affection and partially to piss him off, he’s sure. 

She looked him in the eye and said quietly, “She just needs to be looked after, Benny. I won’t be long, and she won’t be trouble. Just make sure she eats and doesn’t run off. Really, she’s not half as much trouble as you are,” not that that was much comfort to anyone. She blew a kiss to the girl over her shoulder and murmured to Ben to be good and closed the door behind her. The two surly children glared at the dust trail the cab left behind as it drove off. 

Later that day, though the two had barely spoken more than a few sentences to one another, he had her packed into his rusty grey station wagon and they were on the way to Arizona. She said nothing, her heart clenching in fear. She never liked the desert, and certainly wasn’t feeling very confident that this asshole wouldn’t just dump her out here while Leia was gone and claim she’d run away again. Her mouth was dry and she was frightened, but she wouldn’t let him know that. She refused. Instead, she turned a steely gaze on him from the backseat through his rear-view mirror. It was going to be a long fucking ride.

And that’s how they spent the summer of 2004. They were both frequently grumpy, but were able to stand one another’s company because they had to. They had no other choice. She appreciated two things about their impromptu road trip: he didn’t skimp on food and as she blatantly put it that first hour in the car with a pleasantly surprised smile, his “taste in music doesn’t suck.”. 

It was a happy accident that as they were passing by Peoria, Arizona on June 29th, they found that Warped Tour was going to be held there the next day. As loathe as he was to admit it, Ben enjoyed music and live shows, and even more , he really enjoyed Rey’s expression when experiencing his music for the first time. He caught on fast that she’d never really had this kind of fun, this kind of freedom, the ability to enjoy herself and listen to music like this, with the windows down and the volume up and belting out the lyrics. He told her that the reason they stopped for the night was because he had a migraine and couldn’t drive the last leg of the journey. She didn’t seem overly heartbroken at another day on the road especially since she wasn’t overly thrilled at the concept of being left behind in a hotel room while he explored new campuses that she didn’t think she’d ever be able to afford tuition at.

The next morning, he pounded on her door until she sluggishly got up to open it. He threw clothes on her head and told her to get dressed and hurry up. She squinted outside. It’s not like they wouldn’t make good time, so why would he be so eager to leave at the ass-crack of dawn? She grumbled all the way through her shower and getting dressed and didn’t stop until he had given her an energy drink and a smirk that instantly made her suspicious. 

“Ready for the best day of your life?”

He didn’t know that the pickings for best day of her life were already pretty slim, and that any day she spent with his family, even with him, already ranked on that last. She gaped at him in confusion and he pulled out a pair of tickets to the festival. “My treat. Because your taste in music doesn’t suck,” he teased.

By the time they had arrived in Tucson late the next day, she had played her new CDs that he’d bought her so much that they started to skip because they were so overheated. She devoured Green Day and Blink 182 and Sum 41 and the rest of the line up as if it were oxygen, as if she needed them to really live. She couldn’t keep the smile off her face. 

They stayed in Arizona for the entirety of July, waiting to hear from his parents. His 22nd birthday came and went, and though he was a little irritated by not being able to go out and party with friends, for the most part he was pretty happy to spend some time with his new...sister? Person? He didn’t really know what the deal was with his parents and his new charge, just that she was orphaned or something and that with every passing day that she didn’t hear from Leia the smile waned a little bit more from her eyes. The first few days of August came and went, and finally the gloom that she’d been staving off had started to overcome her. She found solace in the pop-punk he’d introduced her to and the food he would constantly be buying for them to binge on, but she didn’t seem quite like herself until August 16th, when he got a call from Leia. Han was injured, but no longer in any diplomatic trouble. She would be home soon, and she was so glad to hear their voices and why didn’t anyone pick up at home? And so they drove back, both far more comfortable with one another, finally feeling like family. 

When Leia returned, she wrapped an arm around each of them and held them both tightly. She wished Ben a belated happy birthday (which surprised Rey, because he’d never once mentioned it) and placed a kiss on each of their cheeks. For a few short weeks it was almost as if they were a real family, enjoying the time they spent with one another and dining together. When Han returned home, it lasted a few more days and the four were able to peacefully accept this living situation as a new reality. But then September came and Ben was off. No more Stanford, only a half hour away. No more weekend visits. No, now he was back in Tuscon, but this time without Rey. And she’d never felt so lonely. September flew by, Rey going through the motions of homeschooling because she was just too emotionally compromised to do Real School, she claimed. She took comfort in the pop-punk she’d fallen in love with, and when Green Day’s newest album came out she found the song “Wake Me Up When September Ends” to strike a very strong chord within her. She didn’t feel like it ever did end, not really. Because she never got that time back, that time when she belonged to a family, that summer with Ben.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Clarification: At this point in time, the only feeling Ben and Rey have for one another are familial affection. Wanted to make that suuuuper clear.


End file.
